现代大学英语精读六（第二版）教师用书Unit2

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1、现代大学英语精读六（第二版） 教师用书Unit 2 - 教育文库 Unit 2 A Rose for Emily William Faulkner Additional Background Information on William Faulkner On September 25, 1897, Faulkner was born in this distinguished family. He spent his youth in Oxford, a small town in Mississippi. Although the old colonel had died before F

2、aulkner came into this world, the boy grew up listening to all sorts of stories about his great-grandfather and other people in his hometown. The stories that his Negro nanny told him and the gossip he heard from the townspeople resting and chatting in the small downtown square provided Faulkner wit

3、h an oral tradition of storytelling as an important part of his education. Faulkner wrote 19 novels and nearly a hundred short stories. The setting of 15 novels and the majority of the short fiction is the American South. In his third book Sartoris (1929), he created the fictional Yoknapatawpha Coun

4、ty. In the same year, he published The Sound and the Fury (1929), one of his masterpieces. This novel owes much to James Joyce and the stream of consciousness technique. In another major work As I Lay Dying (1930), Faulkner relates a terrifying comic story to a ritualized burial journey. In this nov

5、el he experiments with multiple-point-of-view narration. Light in August (1932) is also one of Faulkners major novels. The high point of Faulkners development is the brilliant Absalom, Absalom! (1936). His other major works include The Unvanquished, The Wild Palms, The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion,

6、 Go Down Moses, A Fable, etc. As the setting of most of his works is the American South, Faulkner is regarded as a regional writer. But the word regional is misleading because Faulkner deals with some of the major universal themes in literature so profoundly that his work is read and recognized nati

7、onally and internationally. As far as writing techniques are concerned, Faulkner is among the great experimentalists of the 20th century novel. His effective use of stream of consciousness, multiple points of view, symbolism and imagery, places him among the rank of outstanding modern writers along

8、with James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. In 1950, Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Themes and Writing Techniques of “A Rose for Emily” In A Rose for Emily we can see how the author tells the good story skillfully; how he creates the requisite atmosphere for telling the story; how he main

9、tains the suspense and unfolds the conflict bit by bit; and how he digs deep into the social world of his characters. This story is a rich and modern 20th-century literary text. Those who are not very familiar with modern American literature may therefore encounter obstacles in reading this story: v

10、ague references, ambiguities, symbolism, imagery, experimental point of view, jumbled time sequences, avoidance of clear transitions, withholding of vital information, etc. By exploiting those tricks, Faulkner hopes to invite readers to participate in the process of seeking the truths of the inner l

11、ife of the characters in the story. Once we do, we will surely enjoy reading the story. Its like working at a puzzle: the more parts we start to figure out, the more interesting the puzzle will become. The 1950 Nobel Prize presentation speech called Faulkner as the unrivaled master of all living Bri

12、tish and American novelists. He is regarded as a deep psychologist. A Rose for Emily lives up to that high praise. Implicit Chronology (approximate) The narration of A Rose for Emily does not follow a normal chronological order. Instead, it shifts in time frequently and gives out bits of information

13、 about the main character, Miss Emily, in such a way that the reader has to piece them together by himself/herself. The following implicit chronology has been worked out on the basis of the information from the text. ca. 1855: Miss Emily was born to the richest family of slave-owners in the town. 18

14、61: The American Civil War broke out; Confederate troops from the town were commanded by Col. Sartoris. 1870s: Mr. Grierson, Miss Emilys father, had the family house built in the Gothic revival style. ca. 1886: Mr. Grierson died; Miss Emilys inheritance was only the house; she was over thirty. ca. 1

15、887: Homer Barron, Northern construction foreman, arrived; he and Miss Emily started courting. ca. 1888: Homer Barron could be seen no more; the smell in the house was noticed. 1894: The Young Colonel Sartoris, as mayor of the town, exempted Miss Emily from taxes for life. ca. 1919: The Young Colone

16、l died. ca. 1927-1928: The tax delegation visited Miss Emily. ca. 1929-1930: Miss Emily died at the age of 74. Notes: ca. is short for circa, meaning about used before an approximate date or figure. We must remember that Faulkner is not always accurate about the exact time of a certain event. The pu

17、rpose of working out this chronology is to give students a rough idea of the time frame in which the story took place. Structure of the Text Part I (Paras. 1-14) This part begins with the death of Miss Emily, the daughter of an eminent Southern family and indicates who Emily was. ? When Miss Emily d

18、ied, all the people in the town went to her funeral. (Para. 1) ? Miss Emily lived in a big old house on one of the best streets of the town. (Para. 2) ? When Miss Emily was alive, the older generation treated her as a tradition, a duty, a care and a sort of hereditary obligation. The mayor remitted

19、her taxes. (Para. 3) ? When a new generation came along, its members wanted her to pay taxes like everyone else. A deputation visited her, but she firmly dismissed them. (Paras. 4-14) Part II (Paras. 15-28) In this part, there is a time shift to thirty years before the visit of the deputation. ? The

20、re was a bad smell from Miss Emilys house. That was two years after her fathers death and a short time after her sweetheart disappeared. (Para. 15) ? The neighbors complained about the bad smell, but the town authorities didnt want to embarrass Miss Emily by telling her straightforwardly. (Paras. 16

21、-23) ? So, one night, four men secretively crossed Miss Emilys lawn and sprinkled lime, and soon after that the smell was gone. (Para. 24) ? The townspeople felt sorry for Miss Emily because her father was so proud that he drove all her suitors away, and when he died, he left her almost nothing apar

22、t from the house. (Paras. 25-26) ? The day after her fathers death, people came to offer their condolences, but Miss Emily refused to let them in the house, telling them that her father was not dead. (Paras. 27-28) Part III (Paras. 29-42) It describes how a construction foreman named Homer Barron, a

23、 Yankee, courted Miss Emily and how she behaved after her sweetheart disappeared. ? Because Miss Emily was courting a day laborer, a Northerner, people began to pity her. (Paras. 29-33) ? One day Miss Emily went to the drug store and bought poison. When asked what it was for, she refused to answer.

24、(Paras. 34-42) Part IV (Paras. 43-53) This part describes in more detail how Emily and Homer Barron were seen together and what happened to Emily after his disappearance. ? When people saw Emily and Homer Barron together without any signs of their getting married, they thought she was providing a ba

25、d example to the young and asked Emilys relatives to persuade her to get married. They were relieved to see that there were preparations for a marriage. (Paras. 43-45) ? Homer Barron went away and came back, and was admitted into the house one evening. That was when he was last seen. (Para. 46) ? Mi

26、ss Emily did not appear on the streets for a long time. She grew older and her hair grew grayer. She died at the age of seventy-four. (Paras. 47-53) Part V (Paras. 54-60) This part describes what happened after Emilys deathin an upstairs room, which no one had entered except Miss Emily herself, the

27、dead body of Homer Barron was found. It had been lying in that bed for forty years. Detailed Study of the Text 1. What is the meaning of the title “A Rose for Emily?” The meaning of the title is ambiguous, and can be interpreted in various way. A rose is a clich, symbolizing love and a pledge of fai

28、thfulness. From the story, we can see Miss Emily was denied by love. So, in this sense, the title has an ironic meaning. A rose can also mean a kind of memorial or an offering in memory of someone. Then, who offered a rose to Emily? Faulkner intentionally leaves the answer for the readers to find ou

29、t. But different readers may arrive at different answers. Ambiguity is one of the characteristics of this story. Students should be encouraged to give their own interpretations and give answers to questions that may arise during their reading and class discussion. 2. Who is telling the story? You le

30、arn a lot about many 20th-century literary text by asking, who is telling the story? That is not a very important question as regards 18th-century fiction or even 19th-century fiction because the narrator in stories written in those periods is usually a person who knows everything at any given momen

31、t. This is called the omniscient (all-knowing) narrator. Modern writers of the 20th-century, such as Faulkner, like to experiment with different narrative voices. In his long fiction, Faulkner often uses several narrative voices. In A Rose for Emily, he chooses to use we, the people of the town, as

32、the collective narrator. The first sentence of the story is, When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral. In the following sections, we frequently appears as the narrator. 3. Why did the author choose to use this collective narrator? 4. When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see 第 11 页 共 11 页